Jonathan wanted to conduct very early – at just 11 years old he was trying it out on his own. ‘You can imagine the embarrassment when one’s parents find their son conducting to a wall’ he said. Luckily for everyone he’s moved on since then and is now starting his final term as the musical director of the university’s second orchestra. Did he have any advice for people interested in just starting out now? ‘If you find that you are not getting the opportunity to conduct, invent your own’, he said, adding that most conductors have to start out by creating their own ensembles. In his own Oxford debut, Jonathan accidently cut out half his peice. ‘I didn’t realise I had made the mistake until I had sat the choir down, walked back to my seat and the tenor next to me gave me a nudge and said “do you not like the second verse?”. This then became my excuse for skipping out the repeat.’ Something that really impresses him is ‘sheer variety and class’ of classical music at Oxford, calling it ‘absolutely fantastic’, in both quantity and quality. He seems to view it as an almost public duty for students to take advantage of it, ‘whether you are classically minded or not.’ He clearly enjoys making music too, dubbing it ‘a refuge from the stressful life of tutes, lectures and essays.’Jonathan will be finishing his tenure with a performance of Rachmaninoff’s 2nd symphony and Elgar’s Violin concerto this term. He’s also trying to finish off with a football game between the Philharmonia and the University Orchestra. I asked Jonathan what his question would be if our places were reversed. ‘I’ll have to think about that one,’ he said ‘but I’ve always been intrigued to know just how much the conductor actually does affect the performance’. by Michael Bennett
